Podcast Update

I now have two separate podcasts live and available to download.

PMICast is the only UK podcast devoted to medical and related health insurance. There are four episodes up at the moment (we're currently running to about an episode a week). Subjects covered include : intro to me and my business; a basic overview of medical insurance; PMI for companies and working with introducers.

Each episode has a main feature and then concludes with a brief industry news slot.

You can find the podcast on iTunes, search under 'pmicast' on the store or in your smart phone pod catcher. You can also find the audio at our RSS Feed - www.pmicast.podbean.com.

So far we've had over 2000 visits to the RSS website and around 1,000 downloads.

My latest podcast is the more lighthearted 'Where's Wilson' - this is a science ficton podcast I host with my daughter Megan. Episode 1 went live yesterday and already we've had over 200 hits to the site (www.whereswilson.podbean.com) and 50 downloads so this one too is going really well. This one isn't yet live on iTunes - it's awaiting approval which should come through soon.

Please tell all your friends about these two podcasts and of course please subscribe.

New podcast - Where's Wilson Ep 1 now live

Hi

I've just uploaded episode one of my fun new podcast devoted to science fiction TV, movies and comics with a little bit of martial arts thrown in for good measure.

It is hosted by yours truly with some able assistance from Megan Knight (my 12 year old daughter) and also Ryan (my son aged 7) who is our video games correspondent.

You can find episode 1 at link to podcast and it will shortly arrive on iTunes too (submitted for approval this morning to Apple). It's fun, lighthearted and for first effort we thought pretty good.

Please download and if you like it tell your friends.

Ep 4 of PMICast now available

No formal business blog today but just to let everyone know that the fourth episode of my (now seemingly weekly) PMI podcast is available to download.

It's at iTunes - search under 'pmicast' or at the RSS feed : www.pmicast.podbean.com or simply subscribe via your favourite podcast app on IOS, Android or Windows phone and let it come to you automatically.

This time talk about how I work with professional introducers so if you're an IFA, Accountant or General/Commerical or Mortgage broker I would recommend this as vital listening.

All the relevant contact points are listed on the podcast but please feel free to leave feedback here.

Final post before Easter

Couldn't come up with a major burning business issue to cover today before the long Easter weekend so a brief post to wish regular readers of the blog a good Easter break.

Next week will be a busy one, hoping my first Talk Health blog will go live (stay tuned for more detail on this).

Episode 4 of PMIcast (search on iTunes under 'pmicast' or at www.pmicast.podbean.com) will go up next week at some stage - it will cover aspects of my work with introducers so if you're an IFA or accountant who is interested in driving more revenue from medical insurance but aren't too confident how to go about it this will give you some tips. In addition episode 4 will also see the new theme tune and intro to the podcast and hopefully make things a little more professional.

Lastly, I'm working on an exciting new podcast related project - no details yet as things aren't finalised but as ever my blog will be the first place for any announcements.

Will be tweeting as usual over the weekend so check out either philknightpch or localventure1 on twitter.

Have a good break

Phil

__________

If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Video Podcast - You Tube Channel : pkn439

Audio Podcast - www.pmicast.podbean.com

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group. FSA Number 312878

WPA Seminar today

Attended the WPA : Swift Diagnosis seminar this lunchtime and as an experiment live tweeted throughout the whole event - not sure who was listening but heres a list of my Tweets from start at 11.00am to finish around 12.25pm :

Apologies for the spelling but hopefully this gives you a flavour of the event and the new product feature.

4h

Arrived at great john hotel - only 2 hours parking cud be an issue

Nice hotel, friendly welcome ppt starts

Swift diagnosis - tiered addition SME products

Swift diagnosis is help towards tests and investigations

David Free-Pierce talking company cash plan employee engagement - valued more than PMI

Cash plan pop'n 4 mill

Why swift diagnosis - focus on private diagnosis

Available stand alone or as part of SME PMI proposition

Swift diagnosis - between cash plan and full PMI

Benefits are consults/diagnostics £1500 pa excludes angiograms. Extra £500 for colonoscopy.

£1500 why ? 97% of o/p claims fall below this limit

What's the catch - why angio excluded ? - often extended to full angioplasty (6/10) more costly

Also excludes chronics

10 plus employees - no underwriting or qualifying periods 90 days for less than 10

What happens following diagnostic stage ? WPA helpline (managed care team) advise on NHS or private options

Premiums 0-17 £61.59 pa, 18-49 £151.40, 50+ £ 313.69 NHS top up clients reduced by 5%.

They think the pricing is sustainable - they view medical inflation at no more than 5% - project increases at less than this moving forwards

Larger schemes there is bespoking

Screen shot with typical costs : shows most procedures wud b covered e.g. cardiac ct is £ 1250 or diag. colonoscopy is £2153

Commission is 40 & 5 opportunity to extend benefits a la cash plan & appeal 2 younger employees

Showing examples of tiered cover meeting SME needs

Shows increasing numbers covered but keeping costs same/lower

Fairly informal presentation - one of the presenters leant against the wall !

Questions - qual period for less than 10 - 90 days no u/w

Can u sell it with a full PMI plan from Wpa - sounds like 'no'

Deps charged individually by age company funded for employees

May be available voluntary and individual in future - SME for now

No usage or claims info on SME stuff

Referral from gp or specialist

Allows for second opinion - may be covered but probably not.

Questions now trailing off.....

No option to buy in chunks - pay twice for £3000 cover or for full refund

That's the end !

Live twitter stream from WPA

I'm tweeting live from the great john street hotel in Manchester covering the WPA Swift Diagnosis launch - check : philknightpch on Twitter

Government Response to the Francis Report

Two issues to discuss today, most important is the response the Health Secretary : Jeremy Hunt is going to give following the Francis Report into the events in Stafford.

The report gave over 200 recommendations and of course effectively amounts to a 'culture' change within the NHS. Hunt isn't expected to respond to these recommendations individually but as you may have seen from the news this morning there are some headline moves and I want to focus on one of these : the proposal that trainee nurses spend part of their training working as care assistants on hospital wards. This would be for up to a year and give the nurses 'front-line hands on front line caring experience' to quote the minister.

This is ludicrous !

Nursing is we are often told a calling, a vocation rather than a 'job' and given that nursing is a degree course akin to that undertaken by solicitors or teachers surely the 3 and a half year nursing course mentions caring, patient support, basic psychology of caring and patient needs (if it doesn't already then it flipping well should).

Also consider the position of those already working as healthcare assistants in hospitals. I'm not sure how many there are working in hospitals (but they join the Royal College of Nursing and have their own clinical journal - www.healthcare-assistants.co.uk. I do know that there are around 14,500 new nurses that qualify each year in the UK - not sure how pleased the existing healthcare assistants are going to be to find 14,000 plus training nurses suddenly nicking their jobs.

It seems to be a pretty poorly thought out knee jerk responses that replicates existing training and upsetting an entire tranche of NHS workers in the process - that should improve healthcare standards.

Secondly, I'm planning to do some reviews into health insurance apps for smart phones (primarily IOS but also possible Android as well). From what I can see some of the main players have a variety of apps but to me they seem a little disappointing - however, I'm going to download them and look into them a little bit more to see what they add to the policy holder experience and if they can ever be a factor in deciding which insurer to recommend to a client.

If any blog reader has any specific apps they use at present or would like me to investigate further please do feel free to drop in some feedback here on the blog or twitter (philknightpch).

Thanks.

Medical Insurance and Social Media

I suspect that in coming months I will return relatively frequently to the subject of social media.

I wonder from an industry professionals prospective if the industry, insurers, brokers - any of us in fact use social media as effectively as possible to communicate to the public.

This morning I spent some time viewing some of the major UK PMI insurers twitter feeds and in the main the results are pretty bland, even allowing for the limitations of the 140 character format they're all by and large simple mini adds or re-tweets of health news stories (although to be fair that is something I do myself on a 'slow news' day).

The exception however is BUPA, to their credit many of their recent tweets seem to involve quite negative customer complaints - not sure how sensible it is to have this on their main UK twitter feed but at least they're not trying to cover up the fact that there are issues.

How should insurers use Twitter to interact with their customers ? Not sure but I think it is an excellent discussion to have ?

Professional Introducers

There is a nice comment piece in the March 2013 edition of Health Insurance Magazine (issue 184) pg15 discussing why IFA's shouldn't really accept offers from insurers direct to refer their PMI clients.

The conclusion of the article is that if every IFA did refer their business to the insurers direct then it would certainly grow the market but that if an IFA needs assistance with PMI (and many do) then referring to a PMI Specialist broker is a preferable solution.

I would recommend my IFA's and professional introducers to view this article and being a health insurance specialist I'd certainly agree with the article in its entirety.

To me the issue is two fold - firstly clients need cogent, professional whole of market advice centred around what is right for them as opposed to what is the right policy for a direct provider to sell them. This sounds like a subtle distinction but really it is not. Any direct insurance advisor (DSF, internal sales or franchise sales person) will usually give the best advice the can based on an expert knowledge of their companies products. Even perhaps with a knowledge of the competitors plans to 'sell against'. However, an independent like myself isn't 'selling against' other insurers in a way that direct sales people often feel they have to, which is a negative, lowest common denominator type of sales process. Having worked in sales for insurers from 1994 to 2008 I can confirm that 'selling against the competition' is an on-going and epic saga discussed in endless insurer sales meetings - some insurers even plot to sell against themselves when intermediary and direct parts of one business are not properly controlled and believe me, I've sat in that sales meeting more than once and it is a deeply unpleasant experience.
Rather, with access to and knowledge of the whole of market and independent advisor like myself is able to offer a very different type of advisory process. Yes, I always consider the budget of my clients but to me the more important question is not how much they can spend but what does my client  need/want - I often work within tight budget confines but I always look to include the most benefit for clients I can and often sell an unexpectedly more comprehensive plan following a discussion around some subtle lifestyle point the client or I has raised and this works both within the individual and corporate sectors.

Secondly, dare I say it, this is also about on-going  income stream for the IFA practice. Typically the deals offered by insurers for direct referral sit at around 20% to 40% of first year premium minus IPT usually with no trail commission. This means that in year one the IFA (whose client the insurer now has direct access to) receives a reasonable income - but in future years their income drops drastically and importantly their control over the client is reduced.

My introducer practice typically offers half of all commission due both initial and renewal for as long as the client needs PMI and the introducer agreement we enter into confirms that although they are using my agencies, the client, overall remains that of the IFA introducer. My view is that an introducer and client relationship is a long term one that should last for many years - so with regular reviews over a ten or fifteen year period the relationship with the IFA continues, they access half of the revenue driven by the client (whether new or switch commission), the client is reviewed and supported with independent advice when needed - at least annually - and a virtuous circle of advice, support and business development for both advisory parties is created.

This interwoven sales/support process is one I have put to many IFA colleagues and when properly examined with case studies and joint visits to clients is one that rarely fails to take hold with an IFA practice.

NHS Failure, Chief Executive pay

I'm self employed.

If I do not work and more to the point, if I am not effective when I advise clients and undertake marketing programs then putting it simply I do not earn.

I'm actually fairly open and relaxed about admin and management issues in the NHS - in any large (nay enormous) organisation there has to be a robust management structure with rules and expenditure on the running of NHS Trusts and so forth. This means that it is inevitable that things will go wrong, miscommunications happen and that admin procedures simply don't work.

However, when an NHS Trust fails and the former Chief Exec is still being paid his full (£225K) salary it is offensive frankly - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21871285

Surely there's a way to suspend someone with no pay pending full investigation of the problems at the hospital. Even if it is proven that he was in no way responsible surely given it is public money that is being paid then details of the settlement need to be made public - after all if it were me and I was fully exonerated by such an investigation and paid £ 225,000 I'd want people to know I'd done nothing wrong and deserved the payout.